Requiem: The Fall of the Templars (33 page)

He said it down by the river in Selkirk Forest late one afternoon, the wych elms shedding gold from their branches. What words passed between him and Christian he spoke of to no one, but kept hidden, locked inside.

As the royal guards showed them into the grand reception hall, sending a servant hastening through one of the doors to inform the king of their arrival, Will stared around him at the marble pillars and silk hangings. Pages and officials moved briskly through, some frowning curiously at Wallace and his men. This chamber hadn’t even been here when he had last visited the palace, a youth of David’s years. The same age, he realized with a discomforting jolt, his daughter would be now. After ten minutes, the door the servant had disappeared through opened and a thin man with a sallow complexion came to greet them, eying them all with wary disdain.

“Sir William Wallace, the king will see you in his private chambers.”

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;

Rose knelt before the door, fingers splayed against the wood. Her heart knocked in her chest as she placed her eye to the keyhole, catching movement in the room beyond. Philippe strode across the chamber, unlacing his shirt.

She winced as he shrugged it over his shoulders, revealing the web of scars that traced his back. She once heard Jeanne say to one of the handmaidens that when she touched him it felt as though all his veins were on the outside. As he took a silk robe from the bed and pulled it on, she imagined tracing those lines with her fi ngertips.
Philip the Fair
. She formed the words with her mouth in silence, her breath warm on the wood. His people had given him that name.

At least, his ministers had, but the royal household had learned to say it, repeating it often in business with visiting dignitaries, until now all of France knew him by it. It was best in the
langue d’oïl
. In English it came across as coarse, in Italian, which she had spoken most in her childhood, it sounded gregarious and showy. But in French it was subtle. Seductive. You could whisper the words, let your tongue flick over your teeth to make the softer sounds.

Philippe le Bel
.

Rose stiffened, hearing footsteps in the passage outside her room. She looked around, poised to spring should the handle to the dormitory begin to turn. A door somewhere close by was rapped. She pressed her eye back to the keyhole to see Philippe look around, placing his circlet over his light brown hair. He stood there, hands clasped behind his back, his gaze on the door. After a measured pause, he spoke.

“Enter.”

Rose watched as a group of men filed into the king’s private chamber. Guillaume de Nogaret entered first. Her eyes narrowed with dislike on his pinched face, then moved to the newcomers. The first was startling: a colossus of a man, against whom even Philippe looked short. He wore a tunic of dyed wool and had a menacingly large sword in a scabbard strapped to his back. She wondered if this might be William Wallace. There had been rumors fl ying around the palace for weeks of his impending arrival, this ogre from the wild north. She saw him bow to Philippe, then extend his hand with an easy smile, as though the king were an old friend.

Philippe stared at the plate-sized palm outstretched before him, then coughed politely.

“A drink for you and your men, Sir William?” questioned Nogaret, stepping forward. He snapped his fingers at a servant by the door.

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The giant let his hand fall. “Thank you.”

The awkward moment passed as the servant busied himself pouring wine into goblets.

“Please,” said Philippe, gesturing to the table near the bed, where two stools were placed. “You must be weary from your journey.”

Accepting a goblet from the servant, Wallace sat. Rose watched the stool, wondering if it would hold his weight. She sighed with irritation as the other men crowded in around the table, blocking her view of Philippe. Three, dressed like Wallace in woolen cloaks, had their backs to her, but Nogaret remained in plain sight.

They began to talk; the usual formalities men felt it necessary to work their way through before discussing business. She found it was like swordplay, each man studying his opponent’s reactions to simple questions and statements, finding weak spots for the real duel to come. Philippe, she had observed, was very good at it. But his practice today was short-lived, the giant coming quickly to the point.

“What of this treaty with England, my lord?” Wallace drained his goblet.

“Are the rumors true? Have you agreed to a peace with Edward?”

One of the men blocking her view shifted on his feet and she saw Philippe throw a swift glance at Nogaret, before the Scot moved in again.

“News travels faster than I would have thought to your borders,” Rose heard the king say. There was a pause. “The rumors are true, but I can assure you it is a peace of convenience alone. I have no intention of keeping any truce with my cousin. The war in Gascony has paused momentarily while I concentrate on the more immediate problem posed by Flanders. Unfortunately, Guy de Dampierre is continuing to resist our attempts to negotiate the joining of our territories.”

Rose’s gaze flicked to Nogaret, who looked sour. She had overheard many conversations about “the problem of Flanders” over the past year: at dinner in the Great Hall, filing out of the Sainte-Chapelle, through this very keyhole.

She knew the plan to annex the count’s territory had been Pierre Flote’s. Nogaret hadn’t wanted to abandon Gascony after all the effort they had put into the region, but in the end the chancellor had won the argument. There were still royal troops stationed in and around Guienne, but the confl ict had halted.

Wallace was talking again. He seemed relieved. “Then I shall look forward to discussing the future of my nation in greater detail, my lord.”

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“You may stay as long as you wish. Our Scottish friends will always be welcome here.”

“I thank you for the kind offer, but I must accept your gracious hospitality for one night only. Tomorrow I plan to continue to Rome to speak to His Holiness, the pope. I will return when I am able, but in the meantime one of my men will stay to begin those discussions with you.” Wallace gestured to a Scot, who still had his back to Rose. “If that pleases you?”

“That can be arranged certainly, but let us speak more over dinner.” There was a scrape of the stool as Philippe rose. “I insist that you join me.”

Seeing the meeting was over, Rose was about to stand, when she heard her name spoken. She put her eye back to the keyhole, thinking she must have been mistaken, then started back, seeing one of the servants coming toward the door. Vaulting to her bed, she tugged off her shoe. As the servant opened the door, she pretended to be pulling it on, then stood, bowing her head, partly in respect, partly to hide her fl ushed cheeks.

“Rose.”

She looked up, her eyes locking on Philippe, framed in the doorway, then flicking to the figure beside him. As her gaze came to rest on the man’s face, all the color drained from hers. He was clean-shaven and looked younger without a beard. But his face was still the same. A host of disconnected feelings—loss, sadness, joy and hate—leapt in her at once.

Nogaret’s voice sounded from the king’s chamber. “My lord?”

Philippe turned to Will. “I will see you at dinner,” he said, heading back into the room, the servant closing the door.

Rose pressed herself against the wall as her father came toward her. “What are you doing here?” she whispered. He began to speak, but she held up her hands as if his words were wasps, swarming in to sting her. “No. I don’t want to hear it. No!” She scrabbled over the bed as he reached toward her.

“Rose, please!”

She stopped at the door and whirled around, spitting words of hate at him in French. It could be a hissing, seething language as well. A language of curses and judgments. She used every one she knew on him, before wrenching open the door.

PART Two

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18

Notre Dame, Paris

april 10, 1302 ad

Philippe’s fingers tightened on the arms of the throne, conveyed from the palace that morning and placed on the dais, as Nogaret’s voice resounded. The rain lashing the arched windows sounded like stones being pelted against the stained glass and every now and then a growl of thunder drowned the minister’s words. It was mid-afternoon, but the sky, boiling with clouds, was black as night. A blaze of torches lit the long aisle of Notre Dame, although their shifting luminescence reached only as far as the first gallery and the angels above, hovering on their stone pillars, were shadows stretching into impenetrable space.

Philippe remembered the first time he set foot in the cathedral. His father had brought him from the royal estate at Vincennes. He couldn’t have been more than six years old. As he walked through the doors, his breath had been knocked from him at the vastness of it. Bending his neck back to stare at the ceiling, he wondered that he couldn’t see clouds drifting there, so close to heaven those heights seemed. He remembered too the discomfort he felt, standing in God’s house, how small and insignificant; an insect on the fl oor of a cavern. He felt it now, magnified by the gravity of the occasion, as Nogaret addressed the throng that packed the aisles.

“. . . and so, we have called upon you, men of the realm, to give your aid.

For the very future and freedom of our kingdom is at stake.” Nogaret paused, letting murmurs whisper through the crowd. He motioned to the bench positioned to the right of Philippe’s throne. “My colleague, Pierre Flote, lord chancellor and keeper of the seals, shall now clarify for you the papal bull,
Ausculta
fi li
, that you may fully understand the severity of the Holy See’s actions against you and your king.”

There was an awkward moment before Pierre Flote rose, a roll of parchment gripped in his liver-spotted hands. His gaze lingered on Nogaret, who seated himself at the king’s side. Then, his voice lifting tremulously over the 194 robyn

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howling storm, the chancellor began to speak. “Pope Boniface has written to our gracious lord, King Philippe le Bel, grandson of St. Louis, pronouncing that he stands above our monarch in the temporal as well as spiritual realm, giving lie to the fact that a king is sovereign in his kingdom. He has demanded the release of the heretic, Bernard Saisset, bishop of Pamiers, a man who stands justly accused of treason against the crown. By this demand, the pope ignores the fact that our king remains, by law and right, master of all internal policies within his kingdom.” Flote stopped to clear his throat and seemed to struggle to make himself heard against the authority of the storm. “Furthermore, he has called for a synod at Rome, to be attended by all the bishops of France, at which he intends to charge our king with such heinous and unfounded abuses as debasing the kingdom’s coinage, suppressing subjects through violent measures and taxing the clergy without need or reason.” Flote looked down at the parchment. His voice became even quieter, causing Nogaret to shift on the bench and frown. “But what of Boniface’s abuses? What of the heavy tithes placed upon the churches of our land, which bleed their lifeblood into the coffers of Rome without sign of benefit? What of the pope’s suppression of his subjects, seen clearly in his groundless defamations of our noble king and his interference in secular affairs?”

As the charges against the pope were listed in Flote’s quavering tone, Philippe gripped the arms of his throne even tighter. His body felt as though it were being pressed in on itself by the immensity of the space around him, in which a thousand images of God and Christ, angels and saints could be seen, in statues and stained glass, murals and hangings, all glowering down at him. His throat felt constricted and he was sweating. He should feel proud, powerful, for the scene playing out around him was unprecedented in the history of France. It was the first time the three estates—Church, nobility and commoners—had been assembled in this way, and Notre Dame was packed with prelates, bishops, counts and dukes, lords and guild heads. But Philippe just felt queasy.

Events had moved swiftly since his arrest of the outspoken bishop, Bernard Saisset, too swiftly for him to retain control over them, with Nogaret and Flote pulling him in different directions. He wished briefly that he had held this council in the palace. The statement being made by the location in which he now moved openly against the Holy See wasn’t worth this terrible, crushing sensation. But despite his discomfort, he knew it had been the right decision.

The clergy, the first estate, were the men most likely to resist his action against the pope and they needed to be shown that he, Philippe, raised on the dais in the fall of the templars

195

this soaring cathedral, was invested with the power not only of the state, but of God. He had already been given assurances in secret that the nobility and the burghers of the principal towns would support him, but even though it had been made plain to the clergy that they would become enemies of the crown should they oppose him, he still wasn’t convinced he would have their cooperation.

“In conclusion,” finished Flote, “we implore you to aid us in the defense of our liberties. Noblemen and burghers of the towns, we ask that you provide us with letters, signed by your representatives, that we may pass on to the pope and his cardinals, stating France will not become the puppet of Rome. Bishops and priests, give us your word that you will not attend the synod to which Boniface has summoned you, in protest at his unjust charges against your gentle king. Lord Philippe will hear your decisions within the hour.”

Philippe stood. All eyes were upon him as he walked across the dais, his robes sweeping behind him. As he disappeared in the shadows beyond the choir aisle, Nogaret followed, leaving Flote and the rest of the royal ministers to attend the throng, now stirring into agitated life.

Philippe touched his damp brow as one of the canons escorted him into the private chambers of the cathedral.

Nogaret’s face was livid, but he waited until the canon had retreated before turning to Philippe. “My lord, I feel obliged to lodge a protest against Chancellor Flote. He deliberately attempted to undermine our argument with that”—Nogaret’s teeth clenched—“
limp
oration.”